In the discussion about the episode, the following article was posted. It deals primarily with the video game industry, but touches on all games, in general, and generally comes to a definitive conclusion that games are not art. Sort of:

I'm not going to spend too much time recapping what the fine podcasters at Misdirected Mark said, other than to point out that, from the functional definition they were working from, yes, games can be art. There are different definitions of art, but that doesn't preclude the ability of games, or the act of playing games, to exist in multiple definitions of the term art.

The article in question, written by Brian Moriarty in 2011 and given as a presentation (Moriarty is a professor teaching video game design, as well as a former employee of LucasArts), does a very fine job of citing the reasoning for the author's opinion, and laying out the thought process behind those opinions. That's good, because simply citing an opinion without any basis for discussion doesn't do much for the overall discussion of a topic.

The Catechism of Saint Roger

The article also cites Roger Ebert. You may not know this about me, but I live a scant few miles away from where Roger Ebert was canonized. At least one of his critical miracles was first performed on the nearby campus of the University of Illinois in Champaign. I actually have a fondness for Ebert, which I may have written about somewhere online. That said, my fondness for Ebert has to do with his ability to elaborate his opinions. As some wise person online may have said, the best way to utilize reviews is to engage the arguments in the review and to use them to highlight those elements of the work that are important to you. Therefore, despite my respect and admiration for Roger Ebert, I can't say that he is incapable of error.

The article in question begins by citing Roger Ebert's authority on the question of video games as art. Spoilers--he doesn't think they are. That said, even in the article the progression of Ebert's opinion is mapped out. He states emphatically that they are not, and over time, concedes that he doesn't think any currently are, but that it is possible that someday one might be. That's an important distinction, because while the author cites Ebert as an authority, Ebert changed his position to one that allowed that the form or structure of video games was not antithetical to games being art, just that no current developer had found the proper means of expressing a game in such a fashion. Roger Ebert's final word, then, wasn't that games cannot be art, but rather, that he did not believe that any video game produced in his lifetime was art. He did not support the absolute position of games being unable to achieve the status of art.

It also becomes apparent towards the end of the article that the author is shifting their burden of proof, by changing the definition of art being used. At some point in the article, the discussion changes from art to fine art. As a supporting thesis, there is a digression towards the concept that most media that produces fine art does not routinely produce fine art, and instead produces a majority of products that aren't able to be considered fine art. That is a lot of words spent to essentially say that "because most things produced in a given medium won't be art, most games wouldn't be art, even if games, in general can be art." That's kind of a smokescreen that doesn't address the actual thesis, which is that games, as an absolute, cannot be art. Or fine art. Because the metric shifted towards the end of the article.

Ancient History

Another argument brought up in the article was an appeal to history. The author, much to their credit, did the legwork to attempt to find if any recorded history references games as art. That said, I have to admit I'm a bit dubious that we know, in complete certainty, that in the 200,000 years that humans have been on this planet, no society has ever considered any game to be art. Or fine art. Either way.

There are actually two flaws with this argument. One is the assumption that you can easily find all references that have survived to the modern day regarding a culture's stance on games and art. Most scholarly searches are still going to be limited by what people have preserved and passed on from those societies. I'm not sure that "are games art?" is one of the primary questions that people look for when unearthing the secrets of the past. If scholars from the last century or so haven't looked for the answer to a particular question, it's going to be hard to find an answer to that question. That means that the supposition is that "no culture has ever thought this to be true" is based on the assumption that everything from every culture from which we have artifacts has been neatly quantified and categorized for easy reference.

The second flaw is that in 200,000 years, only those cultures to have anything worthwhile to say about art are those cultures whose records survived to the present day. That's even harder for me to accept. We know of the existence of cultures for which we have very little cultural reference, and the number of societies that existed that we have no record for is likely much higher than that. How can I make a supposition based on a lack of evidence? I can't say for certain, but I can say that if you go back 100 years, there were many societies we didn't know existed, that we now know about. Modern societies are not the sum aggregate of all human knowledge, just the repository of what has survived mishap and misfortune and managed to be passed down to later generations, often is fragmented and mistaken form.

So, to sum up, I trust that the author did research. Probably a lot of research. I just don't think that a lack of evidence for previous cultures having a stance on games as art can be used as a definitive statement about the objective ability of games to be art. Or fine art.

Dogs Playing Cards (or Are They Playing ART?!?)

The author also spends a good deal of time discussing kitsch art (which is where the distinction between art and fine art starts being more sharply drawn in the article). The short form is that kitsch art isn't challenging and uses mundane and known elements to create art, so it can't be fine art. Full disclaimer, this part of the article comes really, really close to pressing one of my current hot button issues. That may be where some of the passion and energy from this article comes from. I'll freely admit that.

Kitsch art drawing on the mundane or the previously existing to elicit a response reminds me a lot of the current internet trend of identifying a trope that is used in a work, and then using the fact that one can identify the trope as proof that a work is derivative, inferior, or bad.

Remember when I mentioned humans being around for 200,000 years or so? You know how long humans have recycled ideas for stories and art? About 200,000 years.

Context is always important. It's not if anyone has ever used a given plot or trope before. It's using that trope with that plot with these additional flourishes at this particular point in time that makes something what it is. That doesn't mean that it's not possible to overuse elements together, or to create a work that is, indeed, obviously derivative of another work. It only means that the reuse of elements has nothing to do with the ability of the work to be great or meaningful, because it's really damn hard for human beings to come up with 100% new material to work with.

Complaining about the reuse of recognizable or previously employed elements in art as a way to say it can never be fine art is like saying there is no difference between carbon and gold. I mean, they are both made up of sub-atomic particles, they just get rearranged in new ways. I'm totally not going to be impressed by a reboot like gold, just because it has flashier special effects.

Nostalgia and Examination

I do have my own take on why it may be hard to find a culture that has defined games as art. We often cite the truism that an artist isn't appreciated in their own time. Part of the reason for this is that our appreciation of something sometimes exists in a kind of super-position. Remember all of those things you loved the first time you experienced them? Remember how many things that we experience later in life, and then wonder why we were so amazed by it when we were younger?

Its not the best functional definition, but fine art is art that transcends the original context when it was experienced. You can come back to it later and still see that it has an impact on you. It wasn't just that time and place, but the time and place that went into the development of the art crystalized a timeless moment that carries forward. Context may be important for the formation of the art, but fine art makes that context broader and more relevant even when evaluated beyond the origin of the work.

The problem is, you need perspective to disengage from artwork to evaluate it in this manner. Games, by their nature, do not allow you to disengage. If the art is meant to be played, to fully experience it, you play it. But, if you play it, you aren't disengaged from it, and you can't gain perspective on it.

The article mentions chess, but one of the problems with chess is, every era where chess is common, chess feels like a contemporary game, because chess is played. It feels like an ongoing element of life, so it's hard to look back and say, "wow, remember when people played chess--its amazing what that did for their society and perspectives on life."

I appreciate the original author's point of view, and the time and effort that went into the article. I really appreciate that he had so many points that were there to be engaged and discussed. It was entertaining, and I feel like it was a worthwhile effort to create my counterpoints and challenge why I felt compelled to cite those counterpoints. It was a very artfully written article. I'm just not sure if it was fine art.

Thursday, September 28, 2017

Last week I ran a survey across Google+, Facebook, and Twitter about D&D assumptions, and I got 1260 responses. Probably a drop in the bucket of actual D&D players, but larger sample than I expected when I first threw the form together. There is still a bias in the data, given that not every player, by a longshot, engages in gaming talk online. That said, I tried to post the survey to "broader appeal" gaming spaces, rather than sites that catered to specific settings or genres of D&D.

The results are here if you would like to look at them directly. My analysis may not line up with yours, and if it doesn't, I'd love to hear from you.

What I Learned

I'm not a professional pollster, and I know I could have structured and expressed these questions more effectively. Once I had options in place, I didn't want to add any options, so that I didn't skew what past respondents might have answered, but I did post some pictures to help clarify editions, and explanations for some of the terms I used in the questions. Thank you to everyone that helped to point out gaps in my explanations, or potential issues. Hopefully the survey can still provide some useful data even with some of my quirks in design in place.

First D&D Edition You Played (Including DMing)

Among the respondents, most responded 5th edition, which is probably a good thing for the future of the game. It does mean that the results are skewed by newer adoptees of the game, and that newer adoptees seem more likely to discuss the game online (these findings wouldn't be too shocking to me, overall). The next most likely editions that respondents listed as their "onramp" to D&D were 3rd edition and 2nd edition. Not overly shocked by this result either.

First Campaign Setting

The most common first campaign setting for most respondents was homebrew, which I was not surprised by. For years WOTC has said their own data shows homebrewed settings as the most common setting used in home games. The next most likely first settings were Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk. Those don't surprise me, but what did surprise me was that Eberron wasn't higher on the list. When the setting was published, it was designed to be a more accessible way for new players to enter the game, but while the survey doesn't measure IF you played in Eberron at all, it does show that it wasn't many respondents first setting. Also, while not putting in a major showing, it's interesting that Tal'dorei (the Critical Role setting) actually shows up with a few entries.Should Dungeon Crawls Be An Important Aspect of the Campaign

Two-thirds of the respondents thought dungeon crawls need to be important to a D&D campaign. I'm not shocked, since, well, its in the name. Also not shocked that, of the three big "onramp" editions mentioned earlier, 2nd edition is the least likely to think dungeon crawls need to be an important aspect of the campaign. Yes is still the majority response, but its a narrower margin. There was a huge emphasis on setting in this time, and some of those settings had less dungeon crawling than the established baseline of D&D.Episodic Versus Serialized Campaigns

I can tell from the responses I got that I needed to explain this one better. My intent was more about continuity than actual session/adventure structure. In other words, if not just the PCs, but the NPCs and locations they interact with, are recurring things, I was picturing that as serialized campaign. It wasn't just meant to be about if a story wrapped up in one session, or one adventure. That's on me.
Even with my imperfect explanation, two-thirds of respondents wanted a more serialized campaign, with elements bleeding over from adventure to adventure. Among those that primarily play in organized play, this number is more evenly split, which isn't surprising. New 5th edition players are a bit more likely to favor episodic games, which makes me wonder if their first experience wasn't organized play, even if they have moved on to home campaigns.

Should the Majority of PCs be Heroic (In the Modern Sense, the Good Guys?)

These results surprised me. I was expecting 2nd edition adoptees to be more likely to think of D&D as a game about heroes, and lower magic or grittier settings players to be less likely to assume PCs are heroes. It was actually the opposite. The majority of respondents think most PCs should be the good guys, but it gets closer to even if you look at 2nd edition adoptees, or people whose first setting was the Forgotten Realms.Do You Assume Most Adventurers are out for Gold, Glory, or Fame?

The majority of respondents said yes to this. BECMI adopters are the most mercenary of the bunch, and among first campaign setting adopters, Mystara adopters are the most likely to say yes, followed by Greyhawk, then Forgotten Realms. This one wasn't really a shocking data point. The only thing I found weird is that there were respondents that didn't think the majority of PCs should be heroic, but that they also are primarily out for gold, glory, or fame. Which I guess indicates a game predicated on basic survival? I guess?Does A D&D Campaign Require External Guidance to Make sure People are On the Same Page about Tropes/Campaign Structure/Base Assumptions?

This question was asking if you needed to sit down and talk about tropes and campaign expectations, if it was readily apparent just from knowing how to play D&D itself, or if you primarily play organized play, so those assumptions are essentially "baked in" to the play experience.
About 10% of the respondents said their primary play experience was organized play, which I think is an important data point, because even the survey is even a little representative, that a not insignificant number of people that are compelled to go online and talk about the game, respond to surveys, and their primary playing outlet is only adventurer's league.

Almost 50% of respondents think that you should understand how D&D works by knowing the tropes and elements that make up the game. I'm not sure if this means those groups don't have a "session zero" style discussion about future campaigns and what gets included or excluded, but it does seem to imply that they don't think it's a critical element of playing in a D&D campaign. That really makes me wonder how often those games have stress created by the assumption that everybody is on the same page when it comes to what they expect out of the game.

Most Adventures Should End With A Villain

I was surprised, again, that 2nd edition adopters were less likely to expect an adventure to end with a specific villain. Players whose first campaign setting was the Forgotten Realms are more likely to think an adventure should end with a villain than Greyhawk first timers.

Preference for Epic FantasyThis is another question where I had to work on my clarity. To me, Epic versus Gritty meant "national/global scale stakes versus local/personal stakes" for adventures. Assuming that most people came to this same conclusion, two-thirds of respondents want most of their adventures to end up affecting the nations and continents of their setting versus just dealing with local and personal issues over time.

Preference for High Fantasy

Almost 75% preferred high fantasy (which I tried to define as how common magic or supernatural elements are in the campaign). This preference was higher for players whose first campaign setting was the Realms over first time Greyhawkers. The preference is higher for 5th adopters than for 3rd or 2nd edition adopters. For people that wanted a gritty game, that preference shifts to about 50/50.

What Media Do You Think of When You Think of D&D

Hard to paint too broad a picture of these responses, but in general, a lot of people think of Lord of the Rings or Tolkien, although I wish I had more data points for if that meant books, video games, or movies. Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire was riding high on this list as well, and again, I would love to know the split between books versus television. Critical Role shows up on the list, and video games definitely spring to mind for some people, as Skyrim, Dragon Age, and the Witcher get multiple mentions as well.

Wrap Up

I'm not sure if I learned any one unified useful thing from all of this, but the results were definitely interesting. Fifth edition has definitely brought a lot of people to the party, and organized play may not be the majority play mode, but it's got a significant (10%) chunk of players in the game. Critical Role and video games may not be as high on the list as Tolkien, but Game of Thrones is certainly a modern heavy hitter, and, a little sadly for me, some old standards like Fafhrd and Mouser and Thieves' World are not quite as "top of mind" as they might have been at one time for D&D players.

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Internet, I feel like I know you. I've talked to you a lot. Can I ask you something?

At what point did you get the idea that because you can identify the inspiration for something, that identifying the inspiration invalidates the thing that is utilizing the inspiration?

I mean, you are the Internet. You contain multitudes. Somewhere inside you resides the sum total of human knowledge. From porn to kittens to physics. But way more kittens and porn than physics. So you can pinpoint a whole lot of source material.

The problem is, I feel like you are missing some context. Humans started running out of new material about 20,000 years ago, and have been doing reboots of older stories since that time.

Don't get me wrong--some of those reboots are way easier to criticize than others. They barely change anything other than proper names, and the retell the story in a way that is less interesting than the original.

On the other hand, I like the Moses story where Moses shows up and absorbs solar radiation until he leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Also, Internet, pal. I love you. I really do. We've had some great times, and you've shown me somethings. We've had some great talks. But pointing out that something is inspired by something else, as an accusation, when the person making the thing has said it is an inspiration--I mean, that's not even trying on your part.

Most recently, you seem to have seized on the idea that giant robots existed before Pacific Rim was made. I mean, I really thought I could expect better from you. Good on you for finding all that anime and the old Japanese movies where a robot fights a guy in a monster suit. Not so good on you for not noticing that the people making the movie have openly discussed said sources when talking about the movie.

We'll get past this. I know we will. We've been friends since that time when you used to run my phone bills up all of the time. But really, I expect better. Also, quit talking about politics when you're drunk. Nobody wants to hear that.

Sunday, September 24, 2017

In my quest to actually keep my "gaming resolutions" for 2017, I finally got a Cypher System game to the table today for a one shot. Here were the impressions that my usual face to face group came up with. As a disclaimer, this came from one play through. We spent about two hours making up characters, and played for about three and a half hours.

My Up Front Preparation
I printed out "cheat sheets" for the Cypher System for my players, and I tried to create a broader cheat sheet for myself. That said, it wasn't the best effort I have made when it comes to preparing a group for a one shot.

I wanted to see character creation in the system, but the highlights that I wrote for character creation didn't end up being as helpful as I thought as I was making my notes.

Initial Impressions
In general, I've always thought that the Monte Cook games books were well formatted. They have nice sidebars with page references, descriptions of various terms, and some really nice call outs and highlighting in their charts.

Without getting too far ahead of myself, I think the style of formatting and annotation that appears in the books is much more directly useful for the GM than it is for the players.

Character Creation

Because we were playing Predation, the book is set up as a supplement to the main Cypher System core rulebook, as opposed to the "all in one" approach with Numenera or The Strange. That means that to create a character, players are going to be cross referencing at least two books. I had hoped with the page references in the sidebars, this would be more intuitive, but character creation took a long time, and wasn't as easy to walk through as I would have hoped.

Part of the problem is that about 75% of what the character needs for their modified character types is present in the Predation book, but the other part of the core character type information is in the core book, but just about every player thought they had all of the information they needed for type just from the entry in Predation, until they reviewed their sheets at the end.

It also feels as if the initial player choices could have been laid out differently than the other "tier" information. Just about every player missed the paragraph that explained what they got at tier 1, and all of the tiers are laid out in order, without a specific call out to just starting character options.

Starting equipment proved to cause some consternation as well. Equipment in many cases is listed as how many items of different expense "levels" are available. Many of the core equipment choices seemed less than optimal for the setting, which meant that after referencing the core book for number and expense of items, the Predation book was referenced again, to find the more setting specific equipment.

The final issue with equipment is that, outside of weapons and armor, its seems that most equipment is either narrative permission or an asset to rolls, but the way equipment is organized, it feels more granular than it needs to be.

Imparting the Rules
Every player had a cheat sheet, but I ran all of them through the basics of the rules--it may have been my explanation, but for a game that "feels" simple, it's hard to explain all of the most important bits without the game starting to sound more complicated than it is.

Additionally, while the concept of lowering the difficulty worked well for everyone, the "helping out" rule, where players helping one another adds a +1 to the roll, wasn't overly popular. It's not that it was hard to track, just that it ran counter to how everything else in the game works.

It also took a few times going over the rules to get Edge and Effort straight.

XP being used for re-rolls, intrusion denial, and advancement wasn't overly popular when explained to the table.

Setting
The setting of Predation was the most popular thing at the table. It was pretty much universally enjoyed by the table. Additionally, the setting rule of the players handing their companions to one another to play seemed to be popular as well.

Apparently people trapped in the past after a time-travel accident and having dinosaur companions while using super-science is a hit.

Playing the Game
Despite the somewhat complicated way the rules came across when I was attempting to explain the rules to group, once we started playing, with only a few references to the cheat sheet, the rules flowed pretty well at the table.

Additionally, while the table was hesitant about the XP rules, at the rate I handed the XP out at the table, they were less concerned about XP having multiple uses.

Overall, the game made a better impression after we played than it made when we first started making characters. It did feel as if some rules could have been trimmed a bit to make them more intuitive, but in actual play, everything went pretty smooth.

The setting had a lot of potential for story. I wrote a quick outline for the game session, and about of third of the story shifted just based on how some of the intrusions played out and based on player actions.

I also think that my general positive impression of the game system may have been reinforced by the fact that the game is very well set up for the GM to run the game. I think the rules work well at the table, but getting players into the game and interacting with the rules may not be as quick and intuitive as I had hoped.

Takeaway

If I run Cypher System again, I need to plan more time for character creation

I need to get a better handle on explaining character creation to the characters

I need to see if I can tighten up my explanation of the rules if I present them in the future

I want to see if character creation is more streamlined in an "all in one" ruleset like The Strange

Friday, September 22, 2017

I’ve been a fan of Kobold Press’ Midgard
setting since before it was really a setting. I missed the tactile feeling of
my monthly Dragon Magazine when the magazine moved to a digital format when it
was moved back in-house in the days of D&D 4th edition, so when Kobold
Press started publishing Kobold Quarterly, I jumped on board.

Eventually, Kobold Quarterly faded away, but
Kobold Press was putting out an enormous amount of content for the Midgard
setting. The setting was never entirely defined by one set of rules, having
products with stats for Green Ronin’s AGE system, Pathfinder, 4th edition
D&D, 13th Age, and now 5th edition D&D.

Earlier this year, Kobold Press did a
Kickstarter to fund a 5th edition version of the campaign setting, and now, as
a follow up, they have set up a Patreon for Warlock, a ‘zine format publication
to put out articles about the Midgard campaign setting with stats specifically
tailored for 5th edition D&D. In some ways, having a published periodical
about the Midgard setting brings us full circle from the Kobold Quarterly days.
Almost like a Midgard serpent, wrapping around the fans. Or something less
ominous, if that imagery isn’t for you.

Manifestations

As a Warlock patron at the five-dollar level,
I get both the PDF and a mailed physical copy, so I had both available to look
at for this review. For the purposes of this review, I’m looking at issue #1,
which means all kinds of changes can come along as the company response to
feedback or realizes what direction they may want to go, or how they wish to
alter their current format.

The PDF is 24 pages long (as is the physical
book), with a single page at the back for the OGL legal information. The
artwork in the book is black and white line art, but it is quality work. Most
of the articles in the magazine have one piece of accompanying artwork, but the
Beldestan article has multiple NPC images as well as a map.

Physically, the book is on heavier weight
paper, with a stapled spine, and digest sized. It’s a format you would expect
for a ‘zine, but it utilizes quality components even in that format.

Warlocks, Witches, and Wanderings and The Forbidden
Mountains of Beldestan

The introduction is a general welcome to
patrons, and it explains the general purpose of the publication--to provide
articles on the Midgard setting, supplemented with D&D 5th edition
statistics. It also mentions that the individual issues may have themes, such
as the first volume, which is dealing with eldritch horror related material.

The Forbidden Mountains of Beldestan section
details a region where the worship of Dark Gods is prominent and open, and
where gnoll and dwarf mercenaries help the slave trade by waylaying travelers.
The region has its own special metal, which is given 5th edition stats, and
there is a bullet pointed list of reasons why a group of adventures might
visit.

In the Midgard setting, the Dark Gods are
different than just “evil gods.” These are gods that most people in society
have no use for, and don’t have many redeeming qualities. Some gods might be
evil due to their capricious natures, but they aren’t Dark Gods, in the sense
that even offering them prayers might be an invitation to ruin.

While the purpose of the publication is to
provide 5th edition material, most of the information on Beldestan would be
useful even to a GM running AGE system, 13th Age, or Pathfinder. The special
metal would require the GM to do some creative work, but it could just remain
as a plot element metal that someone, somewhere wants. I especially appreciate
the bullet pointed list to call out why adventurers might end up in this
region.

The Delights of Enkada Pishtuhk

The next article details an NPCs that might be
placated in exchange for various rewards. The crux of the article isn’t to give
stats to the NPC, but to build up their “weird” credentials as a hermit with
very odd tastes. PCs that can feed those tastes (some of which are given as
examples in the article) can find the eldritch spellcaster, and receive a
reward.

There is a list of possible rewards, but the
catch is that the rewards are in various locations that the wizard has visited
in the past, and some of them may still have guardians or traps--although if
the PCs can retrieve them, Enkada Pishtuhk is A-Okay with them taking them as
payment for providing him with his odd tastes.

I like the way that PCs might contact a go
between, the built in “quest” to bring the weird wizard his due, and the fact
that the rewards might still be mini-adventures in and of themselves. The
article is built to be used at the table, and gives the GM an excuse to send
them all over Midgard on a scavenger hunt. The list of possible rewards makes
it easier to use if the GM has nothing in mind, but more items can be added if
they want the PCs to have a specific thing as well.

Most of the items that the wizard wants aren’t
dependent on statistics, and the list of rewards contains items that either
have statistics for various fantasy RPGs, or have easily researched
equivalents, meaning that the article, like the previous one, has usefulness
outside of 5th edition D&D.

Legacy of the Unhinged Gardeners

Tying in with the theme of eldritch
abominations, this article is about some gardeners that ended up making evil
mutant plants to fight off evil otherworldly insects, and what the remnants of
their research looks like.

The article provides some location based
effects and the stats to a new, evil plant creature. The story hooks tie into
some other monsters from Midgard products. It’s a solid article, but I’m not
sure it’s as strong as the previous articles in the collection, especially if
you can’t convey the history of the plant monsters during the encounter.

Evil plants made to feed off otherworldly bugs
is a cool origin for evil plants, but without that hook, it can feel a bit too
much like “hey, remember Little Shop of Horrors?”

Void-Touched: Warped Flesh and Twisted Minds

The final article in the collection for the
inaugural month uses some of the rules already in the 5th edition SRD to
explain what might happen when people are exposed to the Void, the vast, cold,
cosmic vastness of uncaring space.

The article gives situations that might cause
a character to be Void Touched, provides DCs to resist those circumstances, and
uses the long-term madness rules from 5th edition to show what happens when the
mind is touched. As an alternative, a character can allow themselves to become
flesh warped, which has positive and negative elements--including, you know,
having visibly warped flesh.

I really like what this is doing, and the
rules have broad applications in a campaign, where they can be used wherever
you think the PCs might encounter sanity shattering or body warping magical
power. The only downside, which isn’t really a downside, given the mission
statement, is that this article is one of the more 5th edition stat dependent
articles, and would take more work to adapt to another rule system.

Patron
Boon

In twenty-four pages, there are a lot of
adventuring hooks delivered. Not only do those hooks exist, but between the
lists, examples, bullet points, and charts, it’s easy to pull that table-ready
material out of the articles.

Patron
Disfavor

The Gardeners article is a little soft
compared to the rest of the articles in the collection, but that’s not an
entirely fair comparison, since there is consistently high quality throughout
the book. While the Patreon clearly labels this as being for 5th edition
D&D fans of Midgard, if you are used to the cross-system support provided
from Kobold Press, the last two articles in the collection might be less useful
to you. Then again, they did say this was for 5th edition D&D.

Pronouncement
of Doom

Recommended--If the product fits in your broad area of gaming interests, you are
likely to be happy with this purchase.

In general, if you are looking for story
hooks, interesting NPCs and encounters for a D&D-ish fantasy game, this
product is going to provide you with a lot of value. Given that I received the
print copy for my $5 patronage level, that’s pretty noteworthy.

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

I was planning on writing a retrospective of RPG a Day as soon as it was over, with some thoughts fresh in my mind. I ended up not following that course of action, because I was so burned out from answering questions, I didn’t want to think about it for a while.

That said, it’s not because it is a bad event. It’s just really hard to stick to something, every day, for a whole month. That’s a lot of work.

Part of why I wanted to stick with it is that I’ve been trying to be more consistent with what I do, relating to my RPG hobby these days. I want to finish campaigns. I want to evaluate books that I purchased cover to cover. I want to follow through on what I start. Sometimes it may not be possible, but when it is, I want to ride it out.

As A Concept

I love RPG a Day as a concept. I enjoy sharing anecdotes and perspectives on the hobby, and in turn, seeing other stories and perspectives. I love anything that gets people to communicate more, and find more common ground.

Because of that, I liked the questions that allowed for more of an exploration of experiences. Sharing character moments and types of campaigns are great for this. Finding moments in the hobby that worked well and that didn’t work well. In those moments, we learn who our fellow gamers are, and sometimes we learn things about ourselves.

Execution

Some questions just fell flat. This happens every year. I don’t blame anyone for this. Coming up with a question a day for an entire month would be a terrible challenge. That said, I think the best questions were the ones that were open enough for a detailed answer, but focused enough to point the person in limited direction to draw from.

Asking a question that is too easily answered in a single word or phrase isn’t really starting a discussion. Asking too broad of a question, especially in the middle or at the end of a month of questions, is just going to shut someone down from too many options.

I also think that any “absolute” questions automatically start off on the wrong foot. Asking the “best” or “worst” is almost always going to be subjective, and it also invites the person answering the question to make a declarative statement, instead of asking them to start a discussion. If you ask someone their worst experience with something, they automatically know that the answer is from their perspective. If you ask them THE worst experience with something, and they answer in the spirit the question is asked, its very easy for people to view engaging with that answer as adversarial.

Reception

I have noticed it in the past, and it happened again this year, but some people seem to have a very strong reaction against this event. I guess I understand if all you see are responses to this event all day long. But if you follow someone, and you see value in following them the rest of the year, even if this event isn’t your thing, maybe its worth noting that they are getting something out of the participation.

I completely understand not wanting to participate. I understand not enjoying the event and not caring to see the responses. I’m not as keen on people actively railing against it, or even actively railing against people participating in it.

Next Year?

I’m not sure if I’m going to participate next year. It takes a lot of effort, and if I start, I feel obligated to finish. I definitely get something out of participating, and there are a lot of people that provided answers that I was not expecting, or that found depth or nuance to questions where I didn’t see it. I can appreciate that.

My wishlist for next year would be:

Fewer questions that utilize absolutes like “best” or “worst”

Fewer questions that assume a play style for the answer (i.e. that people have played long for campaigns or two hour sessions)

A little less cross-over between the types of answers a question might generate (day 7 and 13, for example, could have a lot of redundancy between them)

But for all of my wish list above, I don’t want to be overly critical. It can’t be easy coming up with these questions, and I think the result is a net positive for the community of RPG players.

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Wondering where my latest review is at? This time around, I'm going to graciously ask you to direct your attention to the illustrious and venerable Gnome Stew blog, where the gnomes have allowed me to post a guest article on their site.

Friday, September 1, 2017

In the past, I have mentioned that I need to have some kind of standard to keep in mind when I'm doing my reviews, but I've also mentioned that I'm not interested in measuring the overall worth of an RPG product as a creative endeavor, just giving recommendations and observations. Unfortunately, the star system I was using always felt more like later rather than the former.

After some thought, I came up with this new system. It roughly correlates to the stars I was previously used, but I think it puts the actual review more in line with what I'm trying to bring across with my observations and opinions.

Not Recommended--There isn’t much in this product that convinces me to tell others to pick it up.

Tenuous Recommendation--The
product has positive aspects, but buyers may want to make sure the
positive aspects align with their tastes before moving this up their
list of what to purchase next.

Qualified Recommendation--A
product with lots of positive aspects, but buyers may want to
understand the context of the product and what it contains before moving
it ahead of other purchases.

Recommended--If the product fits in your broad area of gaming interests, you are likely to be happy with this purchase.

Strongly Recommended--This
product is exceptional, and may contain content that would interest you
even if the game or genre covered is outside of your normal interests.

As with one star reviews previously, I'm not expecting to do too many reviews that end up with a "not recommended" rating. I'm hoping that by doing my due diligence, I'm not going to spend too much time on a product that I wouldn't recommend at all.

As with the five star rating, I'm going to reserve the "strongly recommended" rating for for those products that really don't come along very often, and that I feel have broad appeal, even beyond what may seem to be the target audience of the product.

Hopefully, this will make what I'm trying to communicate a bit more clear.

I just wrapped up my Storm King's Thunder game last night, and I have a few follow up thoughts on the adventure now that I have finished running it. This isn't quite a full post-mortem treatment, but rather the ideas that are most prominent in my mind as I wrapped the campaign.

Pacing

You can travel all over the North in this adventure. Tracking the exact number of days feels very anti-climactic, but hand-waving travel also seems to diminish the feel of how large an area the adventure encompasses.
The exact distances may vary, but Adventures In Middle-earth game me the idea that instead of precise tracking, you may want to break travel into short/medium/long trips. A trip that takes less than three days doesn't even count as a short trip.

Short trips--1 encounter

Medium trips--3 encounters

Long trips--5 encounters

Characters without mounts make a con save based on how rough the terrain is at the end, and have a level of exhaustion until they can rest up. Characters with especially fast mounts or transportation move the length of the trip down one category.

For each long trip (3 short trips = 1 long trip, 1 medium trip + 1 short trip = 1 long trip, etc.) add in a specifically giant centered encounter. Several areas have planned giant encounters, but its really easy to end up going a really long time without giants being a big deal, and that makes the threat feel less imminent.

Quest Givers

As written, there are several quest givers that ask the PCs to do a thing, and when they get there, or on the way, they run into the plot. The problem is, the plot is suppose to be threatening the North.

There really needs to be more faction members or local NPCs that are handing out quests that actually have to do with the main plot. Storm King's Thunder starts to feel a bit like Skyrim, where there are plenty of things to do if you wander around the North, but if you ever want the players to see the plot unfold, it's easy to get lost in minutia.

Since I had a PC that was bethrothed to a half-giant, I made Harshnag her uncle, and brought him in a bit early to nudge the party towards the main plot, but as written, we could have ended up doing a lot of unrelated adventurer busy work. That's fine, if you don't want the giant threat to be a consistent theme, but it seems to leech some of the impact from the back half of the adventure.

The Uthgardt Mounds

In my campaign, the Uthgardt Mounds all incorporated the giant relics in a more obvious manner, instead of burying them. For some reason, having the PCs spend time digging in multiple places felt less exciting that noticing weird things incorporated into the altars or totems at the mounds. Your millage may vary.

Changing the Climax

It really feels like the pacing of this adventure is based on King Hekaton disappearing, and giants running wild, and the PCs finding King Hekaton. But then the resolution is another chapter after King Hekaton's rescue, where the PCs fast forward across the entire North to engage in a short dungeon crawl in an abandoned city to kill a dragon that could teleport in one encounter but not in the final battle (there is a note that she's too proud to abandon her lair and will fight to the death here, but that seems out of place for how she's been portrayed up to this point).

Given that the Oracle can possibly reveal the main villain, and she's even given a specific bit of dialogue meant to allow the PCs to expose her in the throne room scene, it almost makes more sense to deal with her in that chapter. The final chapter already assumes the PCs will have giant allies, and the storm giant traitor angle plays better here, where Iymrith might end up with the two princesses AND a guard on her side. Just yank her ability to teleport, and come up with a plot reason that she can't use it in the throne room. I'd think an ancient storm giant fortress might be warded against such things, and the only access point would be where the conch shell delivers visitors. You might even make the fight with the dragon a race through the fortress to the one area not covered by the ward.

If she escapes, it almost makes more sense to play down her future threat to the giants. She's been exposed, they know what to look for, and the traitors in their midst have been uncovered. If they failed to pin her down and kill her, you can use her as a recurring villain in an ongoing campaign, but for this adventure, it feels like an epilogue.

Finding King Hekaton feels like the actual end of the adventure, and if I ran this again, I think I would shift things around to end on that note.

Clues

The Kraken Society isn't even really hinted at until you get to the last couple few chapters. That makes them feel a bit random. Seeding in their interest earlier would make sense.

By no means do I think this makes sense for every group, but when my adventurers visited Luskan the first time, they ran into Jarlaxle, who "gifted" them with some mercenaries to help them. Those mercenaries were suppose to feed him information, but were actually subverted spies by an illithid working for the Kraken Society.

My PCs got the idea that there was something more going on outside of the giants and the dragons, but they misdirected their attention to Jarlaxle's mercenaries. Even though it was a misdirect, it was a clue that there was another factor involved, and after the party sent an army of Treants to besiege Luskan to claim Jarlaxle's head (long story), Jarlaxle got to drop, at least a chapter earlier than in the adventure, that the Kraken Society had something to do with everything going on, and that his agents had been compromised.

Advancement

Depending on where they wander in this adventure, especially early on, leveling by normal XP awards may get tedious. I switched halfway through the campaign, but the milestone advancement felt a little at odds with the partial sandbox approach as well.

Had it been introduced earlier, the XP system recently introduced in Unearthed Arcana, on WOTC's D&D site, seems to be a really good fit for this campaign. Under that system, PCs are going to be getting XP for visiting important sites in the North, talking to NPCs relevant to the plot, and finding lost relics. If they have a stretch of running into goblins or kobolds randomly, but then happen on one of the Uthgardt mounds, they would still be keeping a steady advancement pace.

Would I Do It Again?

I really love the Savage Frontier as a setting. I really like giants as monsters. I would love to run this adventure again, with the tweaks I have in mind, for the right players, that are interested in exploring and engaging the setting. It's not the best adventure for people that are looking for discreet dungeons and a steady flow of action.

That said, I have so many games I want to run, I'm not sure I want to run it again with enough passion to displace some other adventure or game system on my list of things I want to run for the first time.